Rape charges against retired teacher dropped in Pa.

David Hodges was teacher at Switzerland Point Middle School

CHAD SMITHchad.smith@staugustine.com

Published Thursday, July 23, 2009

A Pennsylvania prosecutor dropped rape charges against a retired St. Johns County teacher on Wednesday, saying the 11-year-old accuser in the case was too distraught to testify at a hearing, while the defense attorney said the prosecution dropped the case because it didn't have enough evidence.

Michelle Olshefski, the deputy district attorney for Lackawanna County, said if the girl feels that she can testify in the case, the charges would be refiled against David Howard Hodges, a 62-year-old St. Augustine Beach resident who retired in June from his post as a technology teacher at Switzerland Point Middle School.

However, Hodges' Philadelphia-based attorney, Steven M. Stein, said Wednesday that the case was dropped because the district attorney's office didn't have enough evidence.

Calling Olshefski "overzealous," Stein said she got ahead of herself.

"I think that most likely what happened, as many times does happen with the DA's office, (is) that they get a hold of what looks like a really great case, but they don't have all the evidence in hand," Stein said. "It looks like it's on the way, but at the end of the day they don't have it."

Particularly, Stein said, there was a lack of DNA evidence against his client.

Olshefski said that while saliva had been found on the girl's underwear, it could not be determined whose saliva it was.

Still, she said Stein's assessment about the lack of evidence was "completely inaccurate."

Referring to the alleged victim, the prosecutor said, "She couldn't find the courage today to talk about it or to face (Hodges). But that's not to say that day won't come."

The girl needed to testify before a judge at a preliminary hearing Wednesday for the case to move forward, she said.

Hodges turned himself in to authorities in Scranton last week, more than a year after the girl told police he raped her.

On June 21, 2008, the girl, who was 10 at the time, called her parents from a house in Elmhurst Township, where she and Hodges had gone to sleep in the same bed.

She told them Hodges "touched her inappropriately" and raped her, and they called police, according to a criminal complaint.

Stein said Hodges, who could be sentenced to more 60 years in prison on the charges, denied the charges and that his client was "quite relieved" that the case was dropped.

But Olshefski said that, according to state law, the district attorney had until the girl was 50 years old to file the charges.

"It's a good case," she said. "We would not have filed the charges if we did not believe the defendant was guilty. ... Unfortunately we didn't have our day in court today."

Hodges had been charged with seven crimes in the case: unlawful contact with a minor, rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child and aggravated indecent assault, all first-degree felonies; indecent assault and endangering a child's welfare, third-degree felonies; and corruption of a minor, a first-degree misdemeanor.